Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	begin_v	time_n	year_n	5,438	5	5.3089	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85427	An apologeticall narration, humbly submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament. By Tho: Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jer: Burroughes, William Bridge.	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1643 (1643)	Wing G1225; Thomason E80_7	16,409	36

THis Apologeticall Narration of our Reverend and deare Brethren the learned Authors of it 't is so full of peaceablenesse modesty and candour and withall at this time so seasonably needfull as well towards the vindication of the Protestant party in generall from the aspersions of Incommunicablenesse within it selfe and Incompatiblenesse with Magistracy as of themselves in particular both against misreportings from without some possible mistakings from within too That however for mine own part I have appeared on and doe still encline to the Presbyteriall way of Church Government yet doe I think it every way fit for the Presse Charles Herle AN Apologeticall Narration HVMBLY SVBMITTED TO THE HONOURABLE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT BY Tho Goodwin Philip Nye Sidrach Simpson Jer Burroughes William Bridge LONDON Printed for ROBERT DAWLMAN M. DC XLIII AN APOLOGETICALL NARRATION OF SOME MINISTERS Formerly in Exile NOW Members of the Assembly of Divines OUR eares have been of late so filled with a sudden and unexpected noyse of confused exclamations though not so expresly directed against us in particular yet in the interpretation of the most reflecting on us that awakened thereby we are enforced to anticipate a little that discovery of our selves which otherwise we resolved to have left to Time and Experience of our wayes and spirits the truest Discoverers and surest Judges of all men and their actions And now we shall begin to make some appearance into publique light unto whose view and judgements should we that have hitherto laine under so dark a cloud of manifold mis apprehensions at first present our selves but the Supreame Judicatory of this Kingdome which is and hath been in all times the most just and severe Tribunall for guiltinesse to appeare before much more to dare to appeale unto and yet withall the most sacred refuge and Asylum for mistaken and mis-judged innocence The most if not all of us had ten years since some more some lesse severall setled Stations in the Ministery in places of publique use in the Church not unknown to many of your selves but the sinful evill of those corruptions in the publique worship and government of this Church which all doe now so generally acknowledge and decrie took hold upon our consciences long before some others of our brethren And then how impossible it was to continue in those times our service and standings all mens apprehensions will readily acquit us Neither at the first did we see or look further then the dark part the evill of those superstitions adjoyned to the worship of God which have been the common stumbling block and offence of many thousand tender consciences both in our own and our neighbour Churches ever since the first Reformation of Religion which yet was enough to deprive us of the publique exercise of our Ministeries and together therewith as the watchfulnesse of those times grew of our personall participation in some ordinances and further exposed us either to personall violence and persecution or an exile to avoid it Which latter we did the rather choose that so the use and exercise of our Ministeries for which we were borne and live might not be wholly lost nor our selves remain debarred from the enjoyment of the Ordinances of Christ which we account our birth-right and best portion in this life This being our condition we were cast upon a farther necessity of enquiring into and viewing the light part the positive part of Church-worship and Government And to that end to search out what were the first Apostolique directions pattern and examples of those Primitive Churches recorded in the New Testament as that sacred pillar of fire to guide us And in this enquirie we lookt upon the word of Christ as impartially and unprejudicedly as men made of flesh and blood are like to doe in any juncture of time that may fall out the places we went to the condition we were in the company we went forth with affording no temptation to by as us any way but leaving us as freely to be guided by that light and touch Gods Spirit should by the Word vouchsafe our consciences as the Needle toucht with the Load-stone is in the Compasse And we had of all men the greatest reason to be true to our own consciences in what we should embrace seeing it was for our consciences that we were deprived at once of what ever was dear to us We had no new Common-wealths to rear to frame Church-government unto whereof any one piece might stand in the others light to cause the least variation by us from the Primitive pattern We had no State-ends or Politicall interests to comply with No Kingdoms in our eye to subdue unto our mould which yet will be coexistent with the peace of any form of Civil Government on earth No preferment or worldly respects to shape our opinions for We had nothing else to doe but simply and singly to consider how to worship God acceptably and so most according to his word We were not engaged by Education or otherwise to any other of the Reformed Churches And although we consulted with reverence what they hold forth both in their writings and practice yet we could not but suppose that they might not see into all things about worship and government their intentions being most spent as also of our first Reformers in England upon the Reformation in Doctrine in which they had a most happy hand And we had with many others observed that although the exercise of that Government had been accompanied with more peace yet the Practicall part the power of godlinesse and the profession thereof with difference from carnall and formall Christians had not been advanced and held forth among them as in this our owne Island as themselves have generally acknowledged We had the advantage of all that light which the conflicts of our owne Divines the good old Non-conformists had struck forth in their times And the draughts of Discipline which they had drawn which we found not in all things the very same with the practises of the Reformed Churches And what they had written came much more commended to us not onely because they were our own but because sealed with their manifold and bitter sufferings We had likewise the fatall miscarriages and shipwracks of the Separation whom ye call Brownists as Land-marks to fore-warn us of those rocks and shelves they ran upon which also did put us upon an enquiry into the principles that might be the causes of their divisions Last of all we had the recent and later example of the wayes and practices and those improved to a better Edition and greater refinement by all the fore-mentioned helps of those multitudes of godly men of our own Nation almost to the number of another Nation and among them some as holy and judicious Divines as this Kingdome hath bred whose sincerity in their way hath been testified before all the world and wil be unto all generations to come by the greatest undertaking but that of our

publique view our Tenets if false and counterfet together with our own folly and weaknesse We would much rather have chosen to have been venting them to the multitude apt to be seduced which we have had these three yeers opportunity to have done But in a conscientious regard had to the orderly and peaceable way of searching out truths and reforming the Churches of Christ we have adventured our selves upon this way of God wisely assumed by the prudence of the State And therein also upon all sorts of disadvantages which we could not but foresee both of number abilities of learning Authority the streame of publique interest Trusting God both with our selves and his own truth as he shall be pleased to manage it by us Moreover if in all matters of Doctrine we were not as Orthodoxe in our judgements as our brethren themselves we would never have exposed our selves to this tryall and hazard of discovery in this Assembly the mixture of whose spirits the quicksightednes of whose judgements intent enough upon us and variety of debates about all sorts of controversies afoot in these times of contradiction are such as would be sure soon to find us out if we nourished any monsters or Serpents of opinions lurking in our bosomes And if we had carryed it so as that hitherto such errours were not aforehand open to the view and judgement of all yet sitting here unlesse we would be silent which we have not been we could not long be hid But it is sufficiently known that in all points of doctrine which hitherto in the review and examination of the Articles of our Church or upon other occasions have been gone thorough our judgements have still concurred with the greatest part of our brethren neither do we know wherein we have dissented And in matters of Discipline we are so farre from holding up the differences that occur or making the breaches greater or wider that we endeavour upon all such occasions to grant and yeeld as all may see and cannot but testifie for us to the utmost latitude of our light and consciences professing it to be as high a point of Religion and conscience readily to own yea fall down before whatsoever is truth in the hands of those that differ yea though they should be enemies unto us as much as earnestly to contend for hold fast those truths wherein we should be found dissenting from them and this as in relation to peace so also as a just due to truth and goodnes even to approve it acknowledge it to the utmost graine of it though mingled with what is opposite unto us And further when matters by discussion are brought to the smallest dissent that may be we have hitherto been found to be no backward urgers unto a temper not onely in things that have concerned our own consciences but when of others also such as may suit and tend to union as well as searching out of truth judging this to be as great and usefull an end of Synods and Assemblies as a curious and exact discussion of all sorts of lesser differences with binding Determinations of truth one way And thus we have nakedly and with all simplicity rendred a cleare and true account of our wayes and spirits hitherto Which we made choice of now at first to make our selves known by rather then by a more exact and Scholastique relation of our judgements in the points of difference about Church government reserving that unto the more proper season and opportunity of this Assembly and that liberty given by both Honourable Houses in matters of dissent or as necessity shall after require to a more publique way of stating and asserting of them In the meane time from this briefe historicall relation of our practices there may a true estimate be taken of our opinions in difference which being instanced in and set out by practices is the most reall and least collusive way and carries its own evidence with it All which we have taken the boldnes together with our selves humbly to lay at the feet of your wisdom and piety Beseeching you to look upon us under no other Notion or character then as those who if we cannot assume to have been no way furtherers of that reformation you intend yet who have been no way hinderers thereof or disturbers of the publique peace and who in our judgements about the present work of this age the reformation of worship and discipline do differ as little from the Reformed Churches and our Brethren yea far lesse then they do from what themselves were three yeers past or then the generallity of this kingdom from it self of late And withall to consider us as those who in these former times for many yeers suffered even to exile for what the kingdom it self now suffers in the endeavour to cast out and who in these present times and since the change of them have endured that which to our spirits is no lesse grievous the opposition and reproach of good men even to the threatning of another banishment and have been through the grace of God upon us the same men in both in the midst of these varieties And finally as those that do pursue no other interest or designe but a subsistance be it the poorest and meanest in our own land where we have and may do further service which is our birth-right as we are men with the enjoyment of the ordinances of Christ which are our portion as we are Christians with the allowance of a latitude to some lesser differences with peaceablenesse as not knowing where else with safety health and livelyhood to set our feet on earth Tho Goodwin Philip Nye Sidrach Simpson Jer Burroughes William Bridge FINIS Mr. Cheynett Rise growth of Socinianisme